


Look At Him Now

by kunnskat



Series: I would have stayed up with you all night [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of Voldemort, Mentions of the Dursleys, Not A Happy Ending, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Readable for Free on AO3, Suicide, The Whole Wizarding World Needs A Hug, listen Harry literally commited suicide walking into the Forbidden Forest that day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-12-27 13:56:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21119915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunnskat/pseuds/kunnskat
Summary: The forest greets him quietly, not a sound and not a creature in sight. He feels like he’s back there, walking towards the confrontation. Towards Voldemort and the elder wand that will kill him for the slightest moment he’d thought would last forever.ORHarry is a sad boi.





	Look At Him Now

**Author's Note:**

> If y'all haven't read the series I'm posting this in, here's your warning that this is sad and dark and you should heed the tags.

Harry retraces his steps and though it should take ages and ages to find it again, he sees it right away when he walks through that specific spot. It's like he's back at that moment and he'd never even dropped it, he'd just kept going with it still in hand.

Except he knows he hadn't, had specifically made sure to drop it so that it would not be found. So no one else would find it.

So Voldemort would never become the Master of Death.

Still, here he is again. Here it is again. And here they are again, his parents. Sirius. Remus. Well, they were as good as his parents too, if he really thinks about it. The best parents he got to have, even if for such a short time. He is grateful for every moment, as much as he is hurting for all the ones he'll never have. This time none of them are smiling.

Harry isn't quite sure if he'd expected them to.

When he closes his eyes, he imagines the smiles they'd given him the first time. They'd been sad, but ultimately it had been a good reunion. Even if they'd as good as urged him to his death. He wonders if they will this time too. If the stone truly does work like that, or if it never will again on he who has already died after using it. Does it still count?

What about the others, would they whisper to him promises of how it wouldn't hurt? He can't imagine it. Especially not from Colin or Dobby.

"We wouldn't," he hears, and his eyes open to meet the gaze of a boy lost much too soon.

"Colin," he says back, softly but with a lot of feeling that he can't seem to put into words even in his own head. Regret, certainly, because Colin shouldn't even have been there. Guilt, because his own idiotic deeds had become that of a hero and Colin had followed that ideal. Sorrow, because there is not a singular way to fix it.

"Don't, Harry. It's not your fault, it never was.”

Wasn’t it, though? 

“I could have saved you.”

“Maybe,” sounds like victory and defeat all at once. It’s proof that Harry had failed and it hurts to know that everyone here is just as aware of it. 

“But if you’d saved me, who else would’ve died for it?”

Eyes widening, he looks away to at least try to hide how off guard he’s been caught. It takes him a moment to find a response, “-but what if they hadn’t? What if I’d saved you all?”

“And what if we all died anyway? You were making sure he wouldn’t come back,” the voice of Fred has Harry’s breath hitching and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s kneeling in the dirt, pain clutching at his heart. 

“Fred…”

“It wasn’t worth it, Harry, but we’re glad it’s just us,” watching Fred falter just before touching him, Harry aches for the losses this world suffered to get here. 

“I wish I could take your place,” is an admittance he’d never make in front of people that could and would make sure he never would. 

“Don’t,” Lavender tells him and for some reason, there’s a smile on her face like she’s happy to see him. It looks nothing like she used to, not the beauty she’d been proud to show, but Harry thinks she’d still be one of the most beautiful witches if she were still alive. Most wanted for entirely different reasons than he’d faced during the war. 

He thinks about telling her but doesn’t. It’d just make it worse that she can’t. 

“Harry, thank you. Thank you for our families that got to live.”

“Thank you, Harry, for my little brother,” Colin chimes in, smiling softly at him. 

“Thank you, Harry, for Teddy,” Tonks grins from where she’s standing by Remus’ side, Remus is also smiling at Harry but there’s love in his expression unmatched by most of the others there. 

“Dobby thanks you for Dobbys freedom,” Dobby stands next to him like when he’d come to save them in Malfoy Manor, he’s smiling now. Wide and bright. It still hurts to know he’d died for it, that his freedom had been so very short. Just a few years. 

“Thank you for bringing my body back,” has him looking up again and there Cedric stands, looking the same as he had when he’d asked it of him in the graveyard. He looks so young, Harry can’t believe they’re the same age now, and that as time passes he will grow older and Cedric won’t have the chance to. 

None of them will. 

“Thank you, Harry,” the dead whisper to him, even those he’d never spoken to but seen in the Great Hall, heartbreakingly frozen in time. 

Harry tries to be strong enough to leave the stone again, a certainty that he’ll always find it if he needs it, but there’s a voice in his head whispering that someone else might find it in the meantime and when he finally walks away to find his living friends, the stone rests in his mokeskin pouch with all his other precious things. 

The dead follow him. He can’t see them, he can’t even feel them, but he knows they’re there. 

“Harry,” Neville sighs in relief at the sight of him, a smile weighed down by tiredness 

“Hey, Neville,” trying to smile back is hard, but Neville deserves his best effort. 

“Come on, we’re all eating by the lake. We all need food,” Harry doesn’t protest when Neville slings an arm around his shoulders and leads him towards the lake. Neville is warm and alive and so very here that he can’t find it in himself to be anything but relieved for it.

Harry ends up following Neville around the rest of the day, up until Andromeda Tonks arrives with grief on her face and a baby in her arms. He meets his godson while dirty and tired and yet there’s a warmth growing in him underneath all the grime when the baby waves a fist before Andromeda can hastily tuck it back into the warm cloth. 

“Shower and change,” she tells him, even though a few spells could make him clean enough. Neville tells him it’s because it’ll make him feel better when he lets Harry borrow some clean clothes so he won’t have to go wake Hermione for his own. Babies know when people are sad. 

Harry doesn’t ask how he knows this, there’s a niggling suspicion in him that Neville knows a lot no one would expect him to about healing. 

Terror that he’s going to drop little Teddy doesn’t stop Andromeda from putting the baby in his arms and arranging them as she likes before she takes a deep breath, asks, “you’ll be alright?” and leaves to see her daughter when he nods quietly. If he’s not, he’ll find someone to help, he tells himself. Neville doesn’t look like he’s about to leave his side anytime soon. That’s good because Neville’s been what’s keeping Harry upright since he came back from the forest. 

He’s what’s keeping Harry from getting the stone from his pouch and using it again. 

“Hello,” he speaks softly to Teddy, fearing that anything else would break this small moment of peace. Neville smiles at them both and Harry thinks that if this moment could last, if the grief never returns and the pain stays away, he could do it. He could live. 

But moments like these are fleeting and Luna comes wandering, looking as broken as Colin but still alive. So very alive and breathing and Harry thanks whatever entity he has to for that. Even though she’s not smiling, even though she looks like she would die if the wind just blows at her. 

Maybe he’s just overreacting, maybe it’s the difference he sees in her and how cleaned up he himself is, but he thinks that the broken one here should be him. 

“Hello Harry, Neville,” she leans against Harry and stares at Teddy, there’s something in her expression that eases Harry’s guilt just a little. “I’ll be going to my father, but I thought I would come find you first and thank you.”

Harry gives her a confused look, not sure what she’s trying to say. 

“Thank you,” she smiles this time, small but still a smile and it lights her up like she’s the stars in the night sky. Harry had forgotten how pretty people are, but Luna never ceases to remind him. “Thank you for surviving the war, for still being alive. I’m glad not all my friends died today.”

Neville clears his throat, looking like he’s near tears, “you too, Luna. Thanks for making it out as whole as you could. M’glad we survived.”

“Thanks,” Harry breathes out, holding Teddy just a bit closer. Thank you for not being part of the ghosts I saw tonight, he thinks and decides not to voice these thoughts even to the ones that had followed him to the Ministry of Magic once upon a time. He doesn’t think these two would be a problem but he wasn’t planning on telling Ron and Hermione that he went and found the stone again, either. As far as they know, it’s staying lost. 

Luna hugs him, then Neville, and wanders off again like she was never even there. Neville’s fond smile is just as beautiful as Luna’s little one and Harry is so incredibly grateful that they can still smile at all. 

It feels like another loss when Andromeda returns and takes Teddy, even if it’s because he needs to be fed and Harry has never had that kind of responsibility before. It’s different to feed a baby, he learns, when he follows her to what is left of the kitchens, Neville promising to check in on Ron and Hermione and to let them know he’s fine. 

Harry isn’t fine, but it’s enough that they’re willing to let him wander around without them so he thinks he’s safe from them hunting him down to force him to come sit with them. He’s got to mourn himself before he can accept the loss of others, Hermione had told him when he first left the Great Hall and all the dead behind. That is why he doesn’t insist when Andromeda tells him she’s got Teddy and that he should get some rest in his own bed. 

Harry doesn’t know if he even has his own bed anymore, his time at Hogwarts is over and he doesn’t know what’s left of Grimmauld Place, if the wards are still up or if going there will leave him vulnerable to the rest of the Wizarding World wanting to get the scoop of the story because they weren’t there to fight but the news must have spread by now after hours of no Voldemort, hours of silence from Death Eaters captured or on the run or in hiding. 

He might not begrudge them their decision to be safe, but he wishes they would remember that the ones who fought have sacrificed so much for everyone else to live safely and that none of them owes anything else to the public. 

Harry wishes he’d known it himself when he first came to this world and learned that they think they have the right to use his name as they like simply because he can’t tell them no. Because he didn’t know to tell them no. Going from the Dursleys’ unwanted burden to the Wizarding World’s most wanted hadn’t taught him how to say no. 

His friends had done that. 

Hermione had said no to bad grades, to letting Harry be alone when he was sad, to letting her parents get hurt in a war they’d never chosen to be a part of. Maybe they would’ve if given the chance but Hermione had looked at them and seen them dead and told the world no, she’s not alright with this. 

Ron had said no to being the twins’ guinea pig, to leaving Harry with the Dursleys when he hadn’t responded to mail, to letting Percy boss him around, to dropping Harry completely every time they’d had an argument. Ron had said no to ending their friendship even while his family got put into more and more danger for it. He’d looked at Harry and seen him doing it all on his own and said no, he’s not going to let Harry kill himself to save them, not when he can help. 

Harry had said yes to being the Wizarding World’s most famous even as others eyed in him envy all without knowing what it’d get him, even though all he’d always just wanted was to say no to his parents being dead. Say no to growing up with people who’d reluctantly taught him how to survive just because the sooner they got him out of their lives the better and yes, he knows. He knows that Aunt Petunia hadn’t wanted him to go at all because she’d been looking at him and she’d seen her dead sister and she’d thought no, she’s not alright with this. 

He knows this, now. 

But listening to her say no to even the slightest good he’d tried to squirrel away in his childhood, listening to her tell Uncle Vernon so he too could say no, to Dudley saying no just because he could and his parents had taught him to, he’d struggled to believe it. Sometimes he still does.

The Dursleys taught Harry that he’s not important and the Wizarding World taught him that he’s discardable. Is it any wonder he sits there and asks himself why he hadn’t said no to coming back? Neville got Nagini, they would’ve gotten rid of Voldemort even if he stayed dead. Ron and Hermione would’ve taken care of it because they’d know how to, they’d know when Voldemort became mortal. He hadn’t needed to come back. 

Harry doesn’t really remember why he’d wanted to. 

Looking at Dumbledore, if it had been Dumbledore but he’s trying not to think about that, he’d felt responsible. Not just for ending the war as Dumbledore had taught him but for the man being dead. If Harry had been better, faster, smarter about their trip then Dumbledore might’ve lasted long enough to be cured. Hogwarts would’ve stayed Death Eater free, Voldemort never would’ve dared put anyone other than Snape there. 

That’s just logical, Hermione would agree if he told her this, Voldemort had always feared Dumbledore. Ron would agree, too, but he wouldn’t bother mentioning logic. Not unless Hermione already had, and Harry feels a wave of sad fondness hit him at knowing that one day they’ll get married. They’ll leave him behind even if they don’t mean to or say that they’re not because they’ll always be friends. 

Harry knows that already, but it won’t be the same. 

They won’t need him anymore, and Harry has gotten so used to being needed that he doesn’t know how to be anything else. 

Ginny never needed him to begin with, though, she’d just wanted him and he’d told her no while he’d wanted to say yes. He can’t say yes now when he’ll look at her and know her brother died because of him. Harry is supposed to be the saviour of the Wizarding World and he’d failed them. 

The cold sneaks over him not entirely unlike a Dementor would, there’s something in his hand and it’s when he sees Fred sit next to him that he knows what he’s doing. He hadn’t even realized he’d let his emotions guide his actions. They’re on the stone floor, a part where there’s nothing covering it, he’s not sure where exactly, other than one of the many alike hallways he used to get lost in even years after coming to Hogwarts. It can’t be far from where he parted with Andromeda and Teddy, though, so he doesn’t try to find his way back. 

Harry would have to let Fred go if he does that. 

Fred is quiet, not a word passes his lips and it feels utterly wrong. Harry can’t remember a single time Fred hadn’t spoken, he knows there must’ve been but nothing comes to mind. They sit there in the silence and Harry grows colder by the minute. It hurts. 

“Hello Harry,” Dumbledore tells him, joining them on the ground. It’s such a Dumbledore thing to do that Harry almost wants to smile. Just until he remembers that he’s dead and it’s Harry’s fault as usual. That hurts, too. It’s a biting pain that mixes with the cold and he doesn’t know which hurts most. 

Harry tries to think of something to say, anything at all, but there’s nothing left after the conversation they’d had in his head. He tries not to think that it hadn’t been real and that this Dumbledore would not know if he asked. The implications of it might break him into little pieces easily confusable with dust. All he has is silence. 

“Put it away,” Fred whispers eventually and Harry listens to him, knowing they’ll still be here even when he can’t see them. Maybe he’ll see them anyway, haunting their families, later. 

The stone returned to his pouch doesn’t make him feel any less cold. Harry wonders if this is how Cadmus Peverell felt before he took his own life. If he grew colder and colder until he could feel nothing but the longing for the already lost. How did Dumbledore let the stone go, in the end? Had he hidden it away in the Snitch while he still could’ve and regretted it knowing he could not touch it again? Had he felt this cold so fast or had he managed to not use it? It wouldn’t surprise Harry, Dumbledore was strong until the end even when he was weak. 

There is no strength left within Harry, finding the Great Hall and the emptiness of it now that all the dead and the mourners have been moved makes it easy to leave. If they’d still been there, he’s not sure he could’ve found it in him to keep walking. From or towards, he can’t answer. 

The sky is bright, the sun shines down on him but he’s still cold. He doesn’t need to hide but the cloak is pulled over his head anyway and Dean walks right past him without realizing it. He’s not the only one, but he’s the only one Harry feels guilt for avoiding. He doesn’t know the rest, not really. 

The forest greets him quietly, not a sound and not a creature in sight. He feels like he’s back there, walking towards the confrontation. Towards Voldemort and the elder wand that will kill him for the slightest moment he’d thought would last forever.

Harry is not afraid. He already knows that death doesn’t hurt. It’s quicker and easier than falling asleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Join my server? I post a lot of sad prompts.  
https://discord.gg/VJseRGK
> 
> Also: thanks Abbi for title idea.


End file.
